Israeli firm invests about $40M in Brooklyn shopping center

Gazit-Globe has made a roughly $40 million investment in a shopping center located deep within Brooklyn, according to sources familiar with the deal.

The Tel Aviv-based real estate company’s U.S. subsidiary Gazit Horizons has entered into a joint venture with owner Surrey Equities for the leasehold interest at Caesar’s Bay Bazaar in Brooklyn. The shopping center spans 300,000 square feet across 14 acres along the borough’s Bath Beach waterfront, and Gazit acquired a 41 percent economic interest and a 50 percent voting interest in the property.

Anchor tenants include Kohl’s, Best Buy and Modell’s Sporting Goods.Gazit Horizons CEO Jeff Mooallem said the company is still figuring out its specific plans for the complex, but they will likely update at least one of the retail tenants going forward.

“There is a Toys ‘R’ Us in the shopping center, and it’s no secret that they’re going out of business and going through their liquation,” he said, “so that will be a tremendous opportunity to start to change the profile of the asset.”

Mooallem told The Real Deal in an interview last May that his company had about $2 billion in potential spending power, and it anticipated using much of it on retail assets in major American cities. In October, the firm bought the Brodsky Organization’s 92,000-square-foot retail condo at 401 East 60th Street for $73.3 million.